Transcript

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>> He's known as The General, suspected of heading an international people smuggling network, trafficking migrants into Europe on barely seaworthy boats. Now Medhanie Mered is in custody, flown from Sudan to Italy on Tuesday to face criminal charges. The Eritrean national is thought to have run a criminal group in central Africa and Libya, alongside an Ethiopian man still at large.

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Both are accused of raking in huge sums, buying kidnapped migrants from other criminals and sending them across the Mediterranean on overcrowded ships. British authorities blame the general for the deaths of more than 350 people when a boat sank off an Italian island in 2013. Mered was tracked down by British and Italian investigators in May.

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He's the first suspected kingpin to be arrested since Europe's immigration crisis began almost three years ago.